Climate

Extreme climate events – heatwaves, floods, windstorms and bushfires – can quickly become disasters if communities aren’t prepared. Extremes are how we will feel the climate changing – more so than creeping averages. So how do we prepare for these dramatic events? Join our webinar panel looking at projections of extreme climate in the future, the impacts these events may have on our built environment and communities, and how we can adapt.

At a glance

Many organisations attempting to adapt to climate change have limited financial and human resources and capacity. Adapting to climate change is just one more pressure that must be dealt with among many others, creating competition for resources within organisations.

We present here a series of actions that are the least that can be done in terms of adaptation planning, and that require very minimal resources.

A good starting point is to use existing information and data (climate change projections, maps, state/local government reports) to understand the broader climate change risk of your area and the potential implications for your business.

The principal goal of this low-resources approach is to evaluate the urgency of the situation. Do the risks from climate change present an imminent threat that must be dealt with now, or is it possible to safely delay action into the future?

If taking this approach, it is not sufficient to simply gather evidence to support the decision that action can be delayed. It is necessary at a minimum to decide when to revisit the situation to re-evaluate the risks.

CoastAdapt is an information delivery and decision support framework. It is for anyone with an interest in Australia’s coast, the risks it faces from climate change and sea-level rise, and what can be done to respond to those risks.

CoastAdapt contains information and guidance to help people from all walks of life understand climate change and the responses available to manage the impacts. Although there is a focus on Australia’s coastal regions, CoastAdapt also links the user to climate change resources on the NCCARF website and beyond that are relevant to Australia more broadly.

Increasingly there is recognition from researchers and policy makers that there are legal, institutional and cultural barriers to climate change adaptation that will need to be addressed if we are able to adapt efficiently and equitably. However, there is a limited body of evidence and few examples of how barriers to adaptation to sea level rise emerge and are addressed in local contexts. Focusing on sea level rise in Australia, this project undertakes inquiry into legal, institutional and cultural barriers to adaptation in two ways (Barnett et al, 2013).

An ancient seagrass that spans up to 15 kilometres and weighs more than 6,000 metric tonnes may be more than 100,000 years old – making it the oldest living organism, Australian researchers have found (Norrie, 2012)